


A destiny woven into hers

by ChocoNut



Series: Tales of love (Season 3/4) [29]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Diverges in 4x1, F/M, Fluff, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25088527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoNut/pseuds/ChocoNut
Summary: Instead of Brienne, it is Jaime who is scarred by the bear. Though shunned by his family upon his return to King's Landing, it is the wench's strange indifference that bothers him the most.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Tales of love (Season 3/4) [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483640
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	A destiny woven into hers

**Author's Note:**

> Some canon-divergence fluff from the period I enjoy writing the most for.  
> Thank you for reading and hope you like it :)

Family, he had grown up believing, was everything. His purpose, his life. He was ready to die for them. He’d kill first and ask questions later when it came to their welfare. They were his motivation, his will to live on after the world had begun to resent him for his noblest deed ever.

_They were..._

Jaime put down the quill with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. 

His father’s harsh words returned to invade his head, haunting him, taunting him, just like the bear that had left him alive with not much left of his handsome face anymore. His nightmare had only worsened when he’d set foot in King’s Landing. Once he was past the humiliation of being mistaken for a petty beggar, men, women and children gawked at the ugly cut on his cheek, and not daring to say a word in his presence, they took to bursting into whispers as soon as he had his back to them.

That, Jaime didn’t mind very much, for he was, for years, used to such covert remarks. People didn’t matter much to him, but what did bother him was that the people who mattered to him had severely let him down. 

Cersei, as soon as he’d rushed to meet her, then his father and long before that… 

_Brienne..._

Shutting away the Book of Brothers, he got up and paced aimlessly. If troublesome thoughts could kill, he’d have ended up deep down in a crypt in Baelor by now. 

The wench, of all he knew… After all she, herself, had been through, why would she treat him like this? Throughout their journey from Harrenhal, she had carefully avoided him, keeping to the group, making sure he couldn’t steal a moment of private conversation with her. So much, he had wanted to tell her as soon as he’d been pulled out of that pit, to break open his heart to her, but whenever he had tried seeking an audience, she’d either disappear or feign sleep, thus, putting an end to his confession before he could even get to it.

Off late, a nauseating possibility had begun taking seed in his mind, dashing to bits, any hope of ever getting to a peaceful state of calm. Was she paying him back in his own coin? Was her persistent silence and keeping away from him her way of avenging the torment he had put her through with his punishing tongue? A crushing weight pressed down his chest every time he dwelled on it, the burden only getting heavier whenever he tried not to brood about it. 

His worst had begun not when he lost his hand, nor even when he was mauled by the bear, but the very moment he had emerged from that pit. 

Since Brienne had resorted to pretending he didn’t exist. With her, along with his heart, he had lost the--

The gentle knock on the door echoed through the silence, piercing through his flow of thoughts, his solitude. Cersei never came by these days. But for his fellow Kingsguard, he seldom had visitors, so who, then, could it--

It came again, and this time it was a heavy pounding, someone impatient to get to him.

“Come in.”

In, she came, but not more than a step or two, she took before halting where she was, hesitant and tentative.

“What brings you here, Lady Brienne?” Agitation and pleasant surprise were a strange mix of emotions, and he didn’t know what else to say.

“Come here and close the door behind you,” he instructed, when she continued to deliberate her next move.

“How can I help you?” he asked again as she made her way towards him.

“I came to--” Her eyes strayed to the horrible pattern on his face and she stopped, her lips slightly parted open, words, reaching a drought.

“Mock me like everyone else?” His head was purged of all else but her indifference, her continued refusal to talk to him, to even look at him. “Revenge is sweet. Isn’t it, wench?”

Hurt blue eyes full of shock met his. “I'm not here for--”

“Is it to inquire about Sansa then?” he barked, knowing full well she had lingered on at King's Landing only because of her word to Catelyn Stark. “Fret not, for I shall speak to father at the earliest--”

“I came here to see you, Ser Jaime.”

And at that moment he realized he’d rushed into impatient conclusions, spoken more than he ought to have. An apology was in order, but questions were all that seemed to find their way to his lips. “Why?”

Eyes still on his wound, she moved closer. “Because I wanted to make sure you’re fine.”

“Why would you care?” He couldn’t hold back the flow anymore. “When you’ve gone out of the way to stay away from me, to avoid and shun me--”

“I didn’t shun you--”

“What, then, was it?” he bellowed, his head pounding. It did pinch when his father had called him a disappointment, and when Cersei refused to see eye to eye with him, hurt, he was, but not because he was being deprived of her bed. It had pained him when his family had chosen not to recognize him, but it had crushed his heart when the woman he’d shared his darkest moments with acted like she’d never known him. “My sister can’t bear to look at my face. My father treats me worse than he behaves with Tyrion these days. But you--” Putting his heartbreak into words was more tedious than he’d thought it would be. “The distance you chose to keep hurt me the worst, my lady.” He searched those eyes for disgust, for resentment, for signs of revulsion, but none, he could find, and that confused him further. “Why?” he asked, desperate for answers.

Her lips thinned in a sad smile. “Do you really think I’d resent looking at you because you’re disfigured?” Her eyes took on a sheet of moistness. “You’re in this state because of me,” she said in an uneven tone. “You think I’d be so thankless as to--”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, shame churning him from within for misjudging her. “Because of your extreme aloofness, I assumed the worst.” 

“For years, Ser Jaime, I’ve been shunned by men, looked upon as a curse to our sex by women. My father tried, more than once, to find me a suitable match, but failed and my Septa--” She stopped, pain from her memories clouding her eyes. “But when I met Renly--”

“For fuck’s sake, what the hell do you see in that cunt--”

“He was the nicest anyone had ever been to me,” she softly revealed, gaze distant, wandering into her past. “When the world laughed at me, he held my hand, whispered words of comfort and danced with me--”

“If you think he was in love with you,” Jaime interrupted again, irked by her devotion to the dead king, “you’re sorely--”

“He didn’t love me,” she stoically stated. “And I knew that very well. I’ve always known it. But I still fell for him, dedicated my life to him. It was a choice. Several nights, I dreamed of him, Ser Jaime, of his cloak on my shoulders until--”

The rest of her tale dissolving into silence, she turned away towards the wall.

Jaime circled a few paces to face her again. “Until what?”

“Until those dreams began to change,” she went to explain with a touch of tenderness he’d never heard in her voice before. “Until, soon after Harrenhal, it wasn’t Renly and his cloak anymore.”

Holding his breath, he asked, “Whose cloak do you dream of now?”

“Stop teasing me, Ser Jaime,” she said, her voice trembling, eyes brimming with feelings she was struggling to put to words. “Can’t you see that I--”

“I can.” Taking her hand, he held it to his chest, letting her feel the pangs of his heart. “Though, I can’t see why you decided to cast me out of your dreams by way of the torture you’ve subjected me to.” Once Sansa and the vow was taken care of, they could've made a promise to each other. To build a life together, one of love and mutual respect. “I can see the turmoil in your eyes, Brienne,” he tenderly observed, sensing the storm beneath the outer calm of those deep oceans, “and I want to know why you’ve been putting yourself through this--”

“Because -- because you’re _you_.” A crushing disappointment cast a shadow over the brilliance of her eyes. “Whereas I’m--”

“--the woman I love,” he finished for her, relieved and elated once he’d got it out. “Let me into your dreams, once again, my lady. Let me share mine with you.” He brought her hand to his mouth. “Not just dreams, but my life as well, my lady,” he proposed, pressing his lips to her fingers.

She caressed his mangled cheek with her free hand. “But your destiny--”

“--is woven into yours, wench. We were always heading towards this, weren’t we? Since the night we first met. Thrown together for a reason, bound to one another by more than that,” he recalled aloud, looking back, though not much in wonderment, at how far they’d come.

“But your father--”

“Trust me, father will be more than pleased when I announce you as the future lady of Casterly Rock.”

“Your sister,” she continued to protest, though feebly now. “She loves you--”

“--and I love her. But my heart lies with you, Brienne,” he allayed her doubts. “It will always be yours.”

“The rest of your kin, your people--”

Lost for suitable words this time, Jaime sealed her mouth with a kiss, tearing to bits, with his lips, the rest of her ifs and buts. And when she kissed him back, the end of their agony, it was, and a new beginning to a life threaded into hers.


End file.
